Actions and Words
by adrianalazarey
Summary: Mal decided to tell Inara how he feels though why he decided to listen to the girls is anyone’s guess.  Set after Serenity, but assumes that Inara returned to Madrassa, seen in the movie.  Short character drabble.


**Title:** Actions and Words  
**Author: **Adriana Lazarey  
**Rating: **PG  
**Disclaimer: **I owe a lot to Joss Weadon's magnificence, including the characters of this story, since they are alas, not mine.  
**Fandom:** Firefly/Serenity  
**Ship:** Mal/Inara  
**Warnings:** None  
**Challenge:** March Photo-Inspired Fic Challenge on Copy That. It's a little over the limit, but I treated it like my uni essays and decided I was allowed a 10 leeway.  
**Quick Summary:** Short character drabble. Mal decided to tell Inara how he feels; though why he decided to listen to the girls is anyone's guess. Set after _Serenity_, but assumes that Inara returned to Madrassa, seen in the movie.

* * *

There were bundles of brown paper around him, littering the floor. Some had lines written on them, the script neat; others had messy chicken-scratches once he had gotten too frustrated to actually write something neatly. There were a couple of pieces of paper with just one letter on them, a 'D' or an 'I' depending on how he started each one.

Malcolm Reynolds knew that he had never been one for words. He was a soldier, a browncoat, and definitely a person of action above all others. He couldn't write things. But Inara had left, and he had to tell her how he felt or Zoe would kill him. And Mal knew her well enough to know it was a literal threat. Well, Zoe would kill him if Kaylee didn't get to him first.

Since Kaylee and Simon were together now, he had (very grudgingly) gone to the doc to get his advice on how to go about romancing her. Mal's first thought was just to grab her and kiss her, but, upon voicing the idea to the girls, it was immediately shot down. Even River had looked at him like he was an idiot, and he wasn't sure the young one even knew what love really was. The fact that she knew that his plan was a bad one was enough to convince him that maybe he should choose another course of action.

He would have gone to ask Wash his opinion of what he should do (and firmly ignore the sarcasm) but after what happened on Miranda that was no longer an option. He wasn't about to ask Jayne anything to do with romance, or women in general; he really didn't want to know what the larger man thought romance was, really. It scared him a bit. So the Doc was the only option left.

Mal had gone in for a general enough reason; he had gotten shot on the last job the crew had gone on, and decided to casually bring it up. To say that it had been an embarrassing conversation was an understatement.

_--Flashback--_

"_Stay still!" Simon insisted as he poked and prodded at the wound. The bullet had just grazed his left arm, didn't need stitches, just a good cleaning. In Mal's world, that was worse than a serious wound._

"_I am staying still!" Mal insisted even while he instinctively squirmed away from the antiseptic. The pain was inevitable, he knew; but that didn't mean he couldn't try to postpone it for as long as possible._

"_Hrrmm" Simon harrumphed, then ignored him while holding Mal's arm still and dabbing at it with a cotton bud. No matter what he had been through, the Cap' was still a baby about getting his injuries fixed up._

_There was a long pause while Mal collected his thoughts. He knew what he needed to ask, he just was a little uncomfortable asking about it. Not to mention he was asking the person who was sleeping with the girl who might have been his little sister._

"_Listen, Simon … I wanted to ask you … I mean, you and Kaylee … and then there's Inara, and I …" Mal blustered over his words, trying to get what he wanted out. Gorram, this was embarrassing!_

"_You want advice on how to let Inara know you're interested in her romantically," Simon said, not even looking up from the wound he was treating. Mal looked at him in clear surprise._

"_Wha … ow! Gorram it!" Mal swore as he spun to look at Simon, knocking his arm into the cotton swab the doc was holding._

_Simon pursed his lips and put the cotton down, picking up a bandage and starting to cover the wound. "Kaylee told me about your .. intentions towards Inara, and I think … well I think it's about time." Simon ignored the second shocked look Mal sent him and continued with his work. "In my opinion, there's nothing more romantic than a letter. Tell her what you think of her."_

_Mal nodded, taking in the idea. Yeah, a letter. He could do that._

"_And Mal," Simon stepped away from him, pulling off the latex glove and looking at the captain with an odd look on his face. "Don't hump this up."_

_--------------_

So Mal has tried. It wasn't until about an hour into writing that he realised it wasn't working. He was thinking too much; he figured that the best bet would be to go and see her and, upon looking at her, the words would come to him. No one had dared argue with him.

He walked through the Companion House nervously, but with a purpose to his step. He hadn't told Inara that he was coming for fear that he would chicken out and not tell her how he felt. He was no purple-belly, gorram it. He would get through this.

"Mal," the soft voice of the companion reached his ears as he came up to her room, the doors opened. She had known he was coming after all, damn crew. Mal took one look at her and proceeded to walk straight past her into her room, not wanting to do this with anyone else around. Inara looked confused, but let Mal do as he wished. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yeah," Mal said shortly. "Look, Inara," he turned around, the words dieing on his lips as he took her in. _Beautiful, simply beautiful_. "Inara, I…" he said after a short pause, trying to get his thoughts together, hands playing with his belt buckle. Inara looked concerned now, rather than confused.

"Kao," he muttered under his breath, closing the distance between them. He moved swiftly, before she had a chance to react, gripping her upper arms with his hands and dragging their bodies together until they were close enough to kiss. It was hard, passionate, as though everything between them was finally being realised.

"What took you so long?" Inara murmured into his mouth once they parted, looking up at him.

"I had trouble figuring out the right thing to say," Mal said with a smile, before kissing her again. _Always knew my way was the right way. Who needs words when they have actions?_

* * *

Kao - Fuck 


End file.
